Ruth Paine on "The Assassination & Mrs. Paine" film: "Well done, but powerfully awful"

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, David Von Pein said:

But here's something else for the CTers to think about....

Even if we were to make the wholly ridiculous (IMO) and outlandish (IMO) assumption that Ruth Paine was, indeed, working for the CIA in 1963....and if we make the further wholly insane (IMO) assumption that Ruth was Lee Oswald's "handler" in October and November of '63....and if we make the additional absurd (IMO) and preposterous (IMO) assumption that Ruth had a desire to "plant" Oswald in the Book Depository Building before JFK came to Dallas....

It seems to me that the conspiracy theorists still have no choice but to admit and accept the fact that there simply must have been a fair amount of coincidence and happenstance and pure luck that must have accompanied Ruth Paine's CIA-sponsored handiwork with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald getting hired at the TSBD on 10/15/63.

Because without the coincidental fact of Buell Wesley Frazier getting hired at the Depository in September of 1963....and without the coincidental fact that had Ruth Paine living just a half-block down the street from Linnie Mae Randle's house....and without the luck and happenstance that resulted in Roy Truly actually hiring the alleged "patsy" named Lee Oswald....then even if Ruth Paine had been deeply involved in a plot to plant Oswald in the TSBD and frame him for JFK's murder, such a plot couldn't possibly have worked out without all of those examples of luck, happenstance, and ordinary coincidence I just discussed.

Unless....

Conspiracy theorists also want to theorize that all of that "luck", "coincidence", and "happenstance" circulating around those people in Irving, Texas, and at the Book Depository in 1963 (people like Randle, Frazier, and Truly) wasn't really luck and/or happenstance at all.

Do some conspiracists think that Buell Frazier was "planted" in the TSBD also---one month ahead of Oswald's alleged "planting"?

And do some CTers think that the close proximity of the Paine and Randle houses in Irving was deliberately arranged (somehow) by the CIA or other sinister forces who were bent on murdering the President?

And do some conspiracy believers believe that Depository Superintendent Roy S. Truly was somehow forced (or coerced) into hiring Lee Oswald? Or maybe Truly was part of the "CIA" too?

Food for coincidental thought....don't you think?

 

How do the few control the many, David?

[David Von Pein]

40 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

How do the few control the many, David?

You tell me, John.

[David Von Pein]

Another "coincidental fact" that can be added to the discussion concerning Lee Harvey Oswald getting his job at the Texas School Book Depository is the information supplied by Roy Truly in the testimony below [3 H 237]:

ROY S. TRULY -- "Actually, the end of our fall rush—if it hadn't existed a week or two weeks longer, or if we had not been using some of our regular boys putting down this plywood, we would not have had any need for Lee Oswald at that time, which is a tragic thing for me to think about."

The above testimony by Mr. Truly makes me wonder if some conspiracists think the installation of the new plywood floor on the upper floors of the Book Depository Building in November 1963 was something that was pre-planned by conspirators so that Lee Harvey Oswald's employment at the Depository could be extended through the day of President Kennedy's visit to Dallas on November 22nd. (JFK CTers, of course, believe a lot of strange things, so if they were to endorse a "Plywood Floor" conspiracy theory, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.)
 

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/15/2022 at 8:28 PM, Gene Kelly said:

The purchase of the rifle and handgun is a clear first instance of prior sheep-dipping ... and Ruth Paine was right smack dab in the middle of it.  

(. . .)

Ruth Paine Separates Lee and Marina ... 

• The Oswald’s moved out of their Elsbeth Street apartment on March 3, 1963, to an upstairs apartment several blocks away at 214 West Neely Street.
• Marina invites Ruth Paine to visit her, and they exchange visits in March.
• Allegedly using the name of A. J. Hidell, Oswald orders a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver from Los Angeles on a form which he dated January 27th.  Then, on March 12, he ordered a rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago under the name of A. Hidell. 
• Oswald used the name "Alek James Hidell" on identification cards which he likely produced at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. Both weapons are shipped on March 20th.
• Mrs. Paine invites the Oswald’s to dinner and takes them on a picnic on April 20th. When Lee was not present, the two women discuss their respective marital problems, and Marina discloses to Ruth that she is pregnant.

Gene, do I understand correctly that your position is Ruth Paine was involved with Oswald's mail orders of firearms and that the evidence for this is Ruth invited Marina to visit her during the same month Lee mailed an order for a rifle--that is the evidence that Ruth, the Quaker opposed to guns, was involved in sheep-dipping Lee in ordering firearms, despite saying to the best of her ability that she knew nothing of it? Because she became friendly with his wife the same month? That's the evidence of Ruth's perjury on the matter of the guns, evidence of a secret life as a gunrunner? 

If you met someone and their spouse did something the same month, would that be evidence you were responsible for what the spouse did? Same logic? 

Why would Ruth want to be involved in gunrunning? And if she did and was intent on making Lee be guilty, why would she not testify to it, instead of consistently denying she ever saw or knew of Lee with a firearm or ever saw him threaten violence or anyone's life? 

Have you considered you may be hallucinating an involvement of Ruth in firearm purchases that does not exist? A false conviction of an innocent person? Baseless suspicion become perceived certainty?

[Gene Kelly]

Greg

Your points are well taken.  I do, however, find it "interesting" that the ersatz purchase of these incriminating firearms happens at just the same time that Ruth is 'courting' Marina, and the Oswalds as a couple are being separated by the Paines. I am not suggesting that Ruth had a hand in the supply of the weapons but given how close she becomes with Lee and Marina, it's conceivable that she knew about the mail orders. At some point, all of Lee's belongings are being stored in her garage, right?  Perhaps the best one could ever conclude is that it's simply a coincidence ... but as I've stated previously, there appear to be quite a number of coincidences that surround Ruth Paine. 

And as Ian Fleming once stated: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

Gene

[Jonathan Cohen]

11 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

… and the Oswalds as a couple are being separated by the Paines.

Gene, seriously? “Are being separated?” You make it sound like Michael and Ruth pried Lee and Marina away from one another against their will. In reality, the Paines offered their help and the Oswalds accepted, entirely of their own volition and based on their dire personal circumstances at the time.

[Jeff Carter]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Gene, seriously? “Are being separated?” You make it sound like Michael and Ruth pried Lee and Marina away from one another against their will. In reality, the Paines offered their help and the Oswalds accepted, entirely of their own volition and based on their dire personal circumstances at the time.

The disagreement is over Ruth Paine’s motivation to befriend Marina Oswald. While there is nothing concrete to disavow Paine’s stated intention, or take her activity at less than face value, it remains striking that she arrived in the Oswald’s lives just as the deMohrenschillds were exiting, and immediately took up efforts to separate the couple, which is exactly what the deMohrenscvhildts were also engaged in. (Ruth Paine offered Marina a room in her home shortly after first being introduced.) That’s a pattern. It might be a coincidence, but as such it fits atop a further coincidence that a deMohrenschildt social event set up the introduction in the first place.

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/16/2022 at 5:39 AM, Gene Kelly said:

The Paines moved to Irving Texas in September 1959, at the same time that Oswald was defecting to the USSR.  Bill Simpich has done some good work in analyzing this period, stating that the ostensible reason was for Michael to work at Bell Helicopter ... but the timing was remarkable. Simpich points out that it was the only weekend that Oswald spent in Irving between 1956 to 1962.  While he believes that the Paines were being used or manipulated themselves (likely by Allen Dulles), they were certainly up to something.    

Michael and Ruth moved to the Dallas suburb of Irving in 1959, during the same week that Oswald came to visit his mother in Irving before he left for the USSR. When Oswald came back to the area in 1962, the Paines were still there. It was like they had been waiting for him.

Wittingly or not, the Paines were now in an ideal locale to assist Oswald, particularly if his trip to the USSR was unsuccessful ...

But Gene, this makes no sense. First of all, Oswald never visited his mother in Irving in 1959. She was in Fort Worth. Fort Worth, a major city, is over twenty miles from Irving, a suburb of Dallas which is thirty miles from Fort Worth. The combined Dallas-Fort Worth area population in 1963 was 1.6 million people. 

Are you suggesting that out of those 1.6 million people there is significance in the fact that the Paines relocated from Pennsylvania to Irving for Michael's employment at Bell Helicopter that summer, and established their personal banking in Irving the same week that Lee visited his mother for three days in Forth Worth prior to Lee's defection to the Soviet Union? Are you suggesting there was a covert meeting, based on their being only twenty miles apart among 1.6 million other people that very week? But if there was no covert meeting, what possible purpose would there be for invisible marionette handlers to have Ruth and Michael uprooted cross-country, complete with arranged employment at Bell Helicopter, in order to have them be twenty miles apart the same week--if they are not going to have a covert meeting? Why would Michael Paine's starting his job at Bell a week earlier or later, or a month or a year earlier or later, matter? What does "the same week" have to do with anything?

Is the logic that because the Paines met the Oswalds three years later in 1962, it is reasonable to conclude that therefore the Paines' move to Michael's job at Bell Helicopter in 1959 was preplanned so they could be present only one major city away three years later when Oswald returned, to set him up for the assassination? At a time before Kennedy had been elected president?

To an outside observer it looks like Michael and Ruth moved to the Dallas area because Michael had been offered a job via a family connection at Bell. Perfectly sensible explanation for the why and when of the move. But no, why settle for such a simple explanation when a vastly more complex one can be suspected? That move to Dallas shows they were "certainly up to something", in 1959 (something more than moving to Michael's new job). Proof? Because for three days in 1959 Lee Harvey Oswald, the future accused assassin of President Kennedy (elected 1960) had been only twenty miles away.

Is it possible that is reading a bit too much into this? That being as close as twenty miles away in a different city from someone else for a few days in 1959, three years before meeting them for the first time in 1962, could be an accident?

[John Cotter]

23 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

You tell me, John.

I’ve had two discussions with you, David, one about witnesses to shooting from the grassy knoll and the other about the sheep-dipping of Oswald. In both discussions you had to resort to the desperate and illegitimate measure of denying or distorting facts in order to defend your lone nut belief.

Your lone nut belief is essentially an example of the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad consequentiam (argument to consequences). It is defined in Wikipedia as “an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences.”

The undesirable consequence you’re trying to avoid is the acknowledgment that anyone other than the scapegoat Oswald was guilty of wrongdoing.

The undeniable fact of the persistent sheep-dipping of Oswald implies that there was a longstanding conspiracy to assassinate JFK and that this conspiracy involved scapegoating Oswald for the assassination. That being the case, placing Oswald in the TSBD was part of the plot and Ruth Paine was wittingly or unwittingly implicated in it.

 

[James DiEugenio]

7 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

The disagreement is over Ruth Paine’s motivation to befriend Marina Oswald. While there is nothing concrete to disavow Paine’s stated intention, or take her activity at less than face value, it remains striking that she arrived in the Oswald’s lives just as the deMohrenschillds were exiting, and immediately took up efforts to separate the couple, which is exactly what the deMohrenscvhildts were also engaged in. (Ruth Paine offered Marina a room in her home shortly after first being introduced.) That’s a pattern. It might be a coincidence, but as such it fits atop a further coincidence that a deMohrenschildt social event set up the introduction in the first place.

Well stated synopsis of what makes the whole Paine/Baron relationship look fishy.  As I tired to state in the film.  

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

I’ve had two discussions with you, David, one about witnesses to shooting from the grassy knoll and the other about the sheep-dipping of Oswald. In both discussions you had to resort to the desperate and illegitimate measure of denying or distorting facts in order to defend your lone nut belief.

You really should be much more careful when you utilize the word "facts", John. Because in many instances, the things you regard as ironclad "facts" relating to the JFK case are not really proven "facts" at all. They are merely suppositions or outright guesswork on your part (and on the part of other CTers who also toss around that word---"facts"---in a loose fashion, as if they could actually prove anything they say---which, of course, they cannot, and never once have).

An excellent example of what I just said occurred in John Cotter's last post, when he boldly gushed forth the following batch of pure conjecture and guesswork as if it were an "undeniable fact" (John's own words), when, in fact (pun, pun), nothing in this paragraph has been remotely proven to be a "fact" at all:

"The undeniable fact of the persistent sheep-dipping of Oswald implies that there was a longstanding conspiracy to assassinate JFK and that this conspiracy involved scapegoating Oswald for the assassination. That being the case, placing Oswald in the TSBD was part of the plot and Ruth Paine was wittingly or unwittingly implicated in it." -- John Cotter; 12/17/2022

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by David Von Pein

[John Cotter]

4 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

You really should be much more careful when you utilize the word "facts", John. Because in many instances, the things you regard as ironclad "facts" relating to the JFK case are not really proven "facts" at all. They are merely suppositions or outright guesswork on your part (and on the part of other CTers who also toss around that word---"facts"---in a loose fashion, as if they could actually prove anything they say---which, of course, they cannot, and never once have).

An excellent example of what I just said occurred in John Cotter's last post, when he boldly gushed forth the following batch of pure conjecture and guesswork as if it were an "undeniable fact" (John's own words), when, in fact (pun, pun), nothing in this paragraph has been remotely proven to a "fact" at all:

"The undeniable fact of the persistent sheep-dipping of Oswald implies that there was a longstanding conspiracy to assassinate JFK and that this conspiracy involved scapegoating Oswald for the assassination. That being the case, placing Oswald in the TSBD was part of the plot and Ruth Paine was wittingly or unwittingly implicated in it." -- John Cotter; 12/17/2022

 

Saying black is white doesn't make it so, David.

[Greg Doudna]

8 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

The disagreement is over Ruth Paine’s motivation to befriend Marina Oswald. While there is nothing concrete to disavow Paine’s stated intention, or take her activity at less than face value, it remains striking that she arrived in the Oswald’s lives just as the deMohrenschillds were exiting, and immediately took up efforts to separate the couple, which is exactly what the deMohrenscvhildts were also engaged in. (Ruth Paine offered Marina a room in her home shortly after first being introduced.) That’s a pattern. It might be a coincidence, but as such it fits atop a further coincidence that a deMohrenschildt social event set up the introduction in the first place.

(I added the bolding above. I respect your honesty in making that clear and acknowledging ambiguity, which many do not.)

But I would like to ask: what makes you think Ruth intended to break up Lee's and Marina's marriage? Serious question--why do you interpret that way? You are aware that several couples and women among the White Russians took in Marina for short periods of time in the fall of 1962 (before Marina met Ruth), when Lee and Marina were having marital difficulties. Do you characterize those White Russians' hospitalities as "efforts to separate the couple"? Ruth believing from the outset that Lee was preventing Marina from learning English and wanting to send her back to the USSR against her will (so Marina told Ruth) ... and Ruth offering to take Marina in as an alternative ... and when Lee and Marina were reconciled in the fall of 1963 Ruth showed no signs of badmouthing Lee to Marina, did not deny access to Marina or his children in Irving, Ruth wrote letters to her mother speaking of Lee and Marina imminently going to get an apartment together ... Ruth made Lee welcome in her home on weekends, made a birthday cake for him, watched television and talked with him, helped Lee learn to parallel park so he could get a drivers license, Lee liked Ruth and appreciated her help to Marina during the pregnancy and birth of their second child ... does that really sound to you like a third party trying to alienate affection and break up a marriage? I don't see how a fair-minded person could judge that way of Ruth Paine if there was no prior predisposition to interpret her in the worst way. A reasonable person would not interpret it that way.  

Minor point of fact: it wasn't de Mohrenschildt who set up an introduction of Marina to Ruth Paine (from any information I have seen), but rather Glover who invited both to a party. I believe Glover and Ruth were in the same madrigal singing group at Michael's Unitarian Church, and Glover also was friends with de Mohrenschildt. Ruth had a preexisting major interest in Russian and Russia so it is hardly surprising she would take an interest in Marina upon meeting her. Just saying.

[David Von Pein]

Just now, John Cotter said:

Saying black is white doesn't make it so, David.

Pot meets Kettle (yet again).

[Matt Allison]

I think the difference is that the Baron was obviously keeping an eye on LHO, whereas Ruth Paine's focus was clearly Marina.

We know the Baron, at a minimum, was asked to do this by Moore; AFAIK, we don't have any evidence Ruth Paine was wittingly steered towards Marina, IMO.